


shadow on the snow, ghost in the grass

by Zilentdreamer



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, Pre-Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 22:54:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21144569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zilentdreamer/pseuds/Zilentdreamer
Summary: “You might as well come out. I’m getting tired of pretending you aren’t there.” Aloy grins when the crouched figure freezes, then drops their head with a visible sigh.





	shadow on the snow, ghost in the grass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Serie11](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/gifts).

Aloy draws her Strider to a halt when the Focus map indicates she is close to the Zeta Cauldron entrance. A quick scan doesn’t reveal any machine activity, she’d been rather thorough when she first came through, but she wasn’t foolish enough to forgo checking. She might have rendered the Cauldron inactive, but a scouting Watcher could have found the dismantled bodies and summoned machines responsible for scavenging the pieces. 

Rounding the hillock that concealed the massive doors set into the side of the mountain, Aloy spots the blasted remains of the Stalkers she’d been forced to bring down. Stripped bare of all valuable materials, it was only her memory of the battle that allowed her to place where each machine had fallen. Picking through the grass, she could make out human footprints, rather than the signs of machines. Someone had been determined enough to brave the shadow of the Cauldron to collect a few more materials.

There is a soft beep and Aloy flicks her eyes to the side, tracking the figure creeping around the other side of the hillock. Even moving slowly enough to avoid making too much noise, her stalker was quick. Aloy couldn’t help but be impressed they had managed to keep up with the Strider’s relentless pace while on foot. 

“You might as well come out. I’m getting tired of pretending you aren’t there.” Aloy grins when the crouched figure freezes, then drops their head with a visible sigh. Emblazoned in light, her stalker’s chagrin was obvious. Standing up, they trot up the short hill and Aloy makes a point of grinning up at Ikrie as she comes over the rise. 

“How long have you known I was following you?” Ikrie asks, sidling down the side of the hillock. Aloy absently notes the way even this close, Ikrie barely rustles the grass with her passing. 

“Since you started following me, two days ago.” Aloy raises an eyebrow in question. “You are a long way from The Cut.”

Ikrie makes a point of glancing around. “Yes, I had noticed the lack of snow and ice.” Crouching down she examines the torn up earth and the burned grass, one of the lingering remnants of Aloy’s battle with the Stalkers. “After the battle in Meridian I decided to stick around and see what kind of hunting these lands had to offer. Not much for me to hunt back...at The Cut.”

Aloy nods, taking in the noticeable changes to Ikrie’s armor. The fur was gone, as well as the thick leather wraps that had kept her legs safe from frostbite. In fact something about the tunic she was wearing, even dyed with the traditional blue and white colors the Banuk tended to favor struck her as...familiar. “Is that Carja made?”

Glancing up, Ikrie raises an eyebrow and it takes Aloy a moment recognize the expression as one of her own. Point made, Ikrie gets to her feet, brushing her hands together to scrape away the dirt. “Yes. Tradition would have had me keeping my old armor in spite of the heat, but as you well know, tradition and I are no longer walking the same path.”

Which was true, the heavy furs she’d been wearing would have only given her heatstroke in the stifling heat that made the Carja method of dressing with silk and machine parts as armor far more sensible. Yet there was something about seeing Ikrie outside of the heavy cover of her Banuk armor that makes Aloy feel….warm. 

Her hood and crest are gone, replaced by the winged crest the Carja favored, leaving Ikrie’s face bare. Her dark hair was shaved on the sides and the rest was caught up into a short tail at the back of her head. Dark blue stripes had been painted under her eyes, enhancing the piercing grey quality Aloy had only caught glimpses of before, shadowed by the warm weight of her hood. 

Gone was the heavy layers of leather and fabric. Shaped machine plates painted red marched down Ikrie’s arms. Wing shaped shoulder guards flared out at the point of her shoulders, matching the crest she wore to protect her head. The plated silk over metal cut away at her midriff, and Aloy finds herself blinking at the bare skin over the thick belt laden with ammo pouches.  
Aloy clears her throat. “Well you certainly look more comfortable.” She casts about for what she’d been intending to ask before she got...distracted. “Why were you following me exactly?”

It is startling to see Ikrie look uncertain, her lips pressing into a flat line. When they had first met, in the darkest hour of the night and surrounded by snow drifts and shattered machines, Ikrie had been direct as a leveled spear. Offering her name in their first words shared, as if Aloy were someone worth knowing rather than the outcast she knew herself to be. It had been refreshing, and Aloy cannot help but feel the loss of that surety and wonders what she can do to bring it back.

Sensing that Ikrie was struggling to find the words she needed, Aloy decides she can wait. “Have you ever been inside a Cauldron?” She gestures over one shoulder to the metal doors that loom on the side of the mountain. 

Looking past Aloy, Ikrie’s uncertainty melts away into curiosity. Aloy finds she infinitely prefers the latter. “I can’t say I have.”

Grinning now, Aloy asks, “Would you like to?” Confident of Ikrie’s answer she starts walking and she isn’t disappointed when she hears the other woman’s soft laughter and the soft brush of her boots through the grass. 

“You’ve already been inside this one,” Ikrie says, increasing her pace so they can walk shoulder to shoulder.

Impressed in spite of herself, Aloy nods. She slides a questioning glance at Ikrie. 

“The scavengers didn’t get everything.” Ikrie waves at the small hillock and the trees dotting the dry grass. “And I’ve hunted with you. You have a very distinctive style when you hunt, easy enough for me to pick out once I know what I’m looking for.”

From the mischief hiding in the corner of her mouth and the laughter in her eyes, Ikrie is clearly waiting for Aloy to ask what she sees. Heart thumping in her chest, Aloy finds it too tempting to resist playing into her hands. “And what are you looking for?”

“I look for precision. You always know the best place to strike, where the machine is most vulnerable. An arrow in the eye or a spear thrust through the heart. Quick and clean, with minimal damage to the machine so that every scrap can be harvested.” Ikrie waves her hand as the field, where only the barest traces of the Stalkers that had once guarded the Cauldron door remained. “From what I could see earlier there must have been several machines here, at least two Stalkers, but there is almost nothing left. No signs of any machine tracks, so they haven’t been harvested by their own kind. Scavengers then, who happened upon this place and found the bodies you’d left behind. Because you never take more than you need.”

Aloy pauses when she reaches the rock wall, face too warm and her breath coming fast. It should be alarming how much Ikrie can see, for what she can see, others might be able to recognize as well and she still has enemies out there who would love to bring her down. But instead she only feels flushed and stripped bare, torn between uneasy and flattered.  
“I don’t know what to say.” It is all she can offer, the truth when being seen has left her without words. She has been given a gift she did not realize she wanted.

A shrug is Ikrie’s response. “I’m just telling you what I see.” Her gaze is heavy between Aloy’s shoulder blades before she glances at the metal doors of the Cauldron. “We’re not going through those doors?”

Aloy clears her throat. “No. That’s not the true entrance. Those doors will only open for machines trying to leave. Our entrance is up here.” She scales the rock wall in a few quick lunges, focusing on the rough bite of the rock against her fingers and the burn of effort required to make the climb. When she reaches the top she turns and offers a hand to pull Ikrie up over the top. 

It feels meaningful when Ikrie pauses near the top and only after a brief hesitation taking Aloy’s hand. As if Aloy has been given a second gift and still she does not have the words that will help her understand what is happening. She thinks she understands but she does not know. 

Using the node on her spear she opens the door once again. Ikrie’s gasp of surprise is soft and filled with wonder. “How did you do that?”

“My Focus.” Aloy points at the small triangle fixed over her ear before stepping over the threshold. “It lets me alter the coding that controls the machines and interact with the other creations of the Old Ones.” 

Aloy knows its a risk to admit this to Ikrie, to anyone really. Sylens was proof that the yearning for knowledge and the same disregard for the consequences of said knowledge was still very much alive in the seeds of humanity that had been so pain-stakingly sewn. There were those among the Oseram and Carja that knew this technology was a possibility, but she finds that she does not want to lie to Ikrie. 

“Is that how you knew I was following you?” Echoing off the metal walls, Ikrie’s voice seems to come from all directions.

Surprised by the leap of logic Ikrie had taken to come to that conclusion, Aloy answers without thinking. “Yes, it lets me see any machine or animal within range, even through walls or hills.”

There is a heavy silence that falls after her admission and Aloy wonders if she’d just made a mistake by telling the truth after all.  
“That’s amazing,” is the soft response behind her. 

Aloy’s quick exhale might sound like a sigh of relief, but she is going to pretend it had more to do with the slight jump she took. Since this Cauldron was not as extensive as the previous ones she had shut down, and for good reason considering what had been waiting for her, it does not take her long to reach the heart of the machine lair. 

Even knowing the Cauldron was inert, Aloy still carefully eases out of the concealing shadow of the corridor, checking for any renewed machine activity. The heavy stone walls were a physical weight overhead, and the machinery that had whirled and spun on her first arrival was still deathly still, even if they did continue to glow with power. As if her interference had only paused their work and they were ready to resume at a moments notice. 

Hopefully she was going to be able to make her solution a little more permanent. 

A quick glance proving that no new machines had found their way into the heart of the Cauldron, or that it had resumed its work of birthing new machines, Aloy motions Ikrie forward. “It looks like everything is still down. Which is just as well. Dealing with this one the first time around was a nightmare.”

“Considering I’ve seen you take on a pack of Scorchers with only a spear and a handful of ice bombs I can only imag-” Ikrie cut herself off so suddenly Aloy spun back towards the core, convinced she had missed something. 

When Aloy saw no active machines nor any sudden increase in activity within the core itself, she turned back with a question that died on her tongue when she caught sight of Ikrie’s face. 

The half-light leaves Ikrie’s face in shadow but Aloy can still make out the wide eyes and the dropped jaw. Sheer, unbridled awe is reflected in her expression and Aloy feels the first prickle of unease when she realizes it is almost identical to the way the Nora had looked at her when she emerged from the Cradle. It only worsens when she tracks Ikrie’s gaze not to the machinery overhead, the heart of the Cauldron itself, but to the broken Thunderjaw sprawled off to the side.

Locked behind the Cauldron doors, no scavengers could pull it to pieces so it is just as it was after Aloy finished collecting what she required. ‘No more than she needed’, Ikrie had said, and she was right. The Thunderjaw was untouched beyond the damage Aloy had inflicted in order to bring it down. Fire damage left blackened metal plates and its sides had been shredded once Aloy had managed to pry off the Disc Launchers with a well placed Tear blast. 

From up high she can see the burn patterns where the machine had triggered her tripwires, the scars torn into the ground where her bombs had slid off slick metal to shatter the ground instead. Staring down at the defeated machine, Aloy remembers the thump of her heart in her ears and the sweaty grip on her spear. Alone and cut off from any possible retreat it had taken every ounce of skill she possessed to win the day, screaming her own defiance when the Thunderjaw let loose its ground rattled roar.  
It was a battle fit for the annals of the Hunting Lodge in Meridian if she chose to tell them, and yet, seeing the almost reverent look on Ikrie’s face leaves Aloy feeling unsettled and almost angry. As if she had found an Old One’s bunker hidden in the earth, only to find everything destroyed or long since scavenged. 

Trying to understand her own unease Aloy slides down into the ground floor of the core room, listening as Ikrie follows her down. As she heads for the core mechanism, still elevated after hacking it with her override node, she hears Ikrie whistle. “You took this Thunderjaw down by yourself.” It wasn’t a question. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

The assurance that it wasn’t the first time she’d taken down a Thunderjaw single-handedly rests on the tip of Aloy’s tongue, but in the end she bites it back. Instead she engages the override node to once more enter the Cauldron’s system. 

She had been content to help Meridian rebuild after the battle that had nearly sundered the heart of the Sundom, until one night after she was done assisting with the repairs and some enterprising mercenaries tried to steal her spear in order to learn the secret of how she mastered machines. It was a short battle that ended in more than a few broken bones and one woman who would never walk without a limp again, but in the end Aloy walked away with her spear, and the realization that in her search for the truth she might be just as responsible as Sylens for unleashing chaos through the Old One’s technology. 

With a new purpose in mind Aloy had left Meridian and returned to each of the Cauldron’s she had rendered inert, determined to make it difficult, if not impossible, for someone to follow in her footsteps. Everything that had happened, with Hades and the Shadow Carja, and even Sylens in his relentless quest to know more, told Aloy that the world as it was wasn’t ready for the power of the Old Ones. Not even the Old One’s had been ready for the powers they had wrought with machines and their own determination to see what was possible. 

It takes some time flicking through the screens before she finds what might be the answer. The Alpha Registry she had restored allowed her access to the Cradle, if she could use it here as well, it would mean she was the only one who could access the systems. Or so she hoped. She wouldn’t put it past Sylens to be able to get past it, but at least she had tried to stop this new world from repeating the mistakes of their ancestors. 

“What are you doing?”

Aloy glances back to see Ikrie peering over her shoulder. Without the Focus she cannot see the program that Aloy is currently uploading to the Cauldron’s mainframe, only Aloy’s hand waving back and forth and her fingers moving as she inputs commands. “I’m trying to make sure what happened at Meridian never happens again.” There was no guarantee that this would work, but Aloy had to try. 

There is a chime in her ear, and Aloy’s own face flashes on the screen. Followed by Elizabet. Aloy resists the urge to reach out, there is nothing there to touch in spite of what her heart wishes and she does not want Ikrie to see her waving her hand randomly through the air anymore than necessary. 

Getting to her feet Aloy slides her spear into its holster on her back. She turns to Ikrie who is watching her with slightly narrowed eyes, lips once more pressed into a flat line. Aloy stares back, eyebrows rising in question. 

Whatever she sees has Ikrie blowing out a breath. She jerks a thumb over her shoulder at the body of the Thunderjaw. “I’m impressed. You really are something out of a legend.”

Aloy doesn’t flinch. After seeing Ikrie’s awe at the sight of the fallen Thunderjaw, an eerie echo to the way the Nora had once stared at her, she knew to expect it. “I’m just a hunter.” 

She tries not to think too much on the truth that GAIA had given her, on her origins. It was what she wanted after all, even if it did hurt like salt rubbed into a wound she had been forced to bear since childhood. She truly wasn’t like the other Nora, she wasn’t like anyone, and it hurt the way only crushed dreams could. 

Elisabet was the closest Aloy would ever come to a mother, and she was centuries gone, leaving only Aloy as an echo to fix humanity’s mistake.

Ikrie nods. “One of the best from what I can see. But I suppose even someone of your skill can struggle a little.”

Aloy blinks. “I’m sorry?”

Gone is the awe Ikrie held before. Now she looks the Thunderjaw over with a critical eye. “The blastwire’s were a good choice, but I can see you didn’t hit the data nexus until after the first volley of...looks like fire bombs?” She glances at Aloy to see her nod. “Yeah I figured. Fire was a good choice but you would have been better off hitting it with an ice bomb, then a blast bomb. The machines out this way don’t have the same resilience to ice that they do back in the Cut, so the ice would have broken the metal down faster after hitting it with the blast bomb.” Another glance her way and this time Aloy can spot the bright spark in her eyes, the flash of humor tucked away in the corner of her mouth. “Can I offer a suggestion?”

Feeling the dread from before sinking away, clearly Ikrie isn’t going to start seeing her as someone to be ‘beholden to’, as if the Nora had that right, Aloy smiles. “I’m always willing to take advice from a fellow hunter.”

The look on Ikrie’s face suggests otherwise, but she continues. “What you did here was amazing, close to impossible I can say.” She eyes Aloy up and down and it brings a flush to her cheeks, her hands twitched to cover her face but she squashes it down before she can embarrass herself. “You are a one of a kind hunter, Aloy, but I think you need a partner.”

“A partner?” There went Aloy’s heartbeat, thundering in her ears and if her face hadn’t been red before it was probably the color of her hair now. “What makes you say that?” 

Here the confidence that Ikrie had been wearing like a second skin seems to falter, and Aloy can once again see flashes of the woman who faced her on the snow and confessed that she had broken with tradition. “I’ve heard some things about the Nora while learning this new land, and I’ve heard about what they did to you. I can see why you left them, and if I were you I would never go back.” 

She looks down for a moment before once more catching Aloy’s gaze. “I can see you’ve always been alone, it’s there in the way you hunt. Precision strikes since you know you don’t have anyone backing you up if you miss. You rely on speed and aim for vital spots, bring the machine down fast and hard before it has a chance to realize you are even there. It makes you good, very good. But I think you can be better.”

“If I have a partner,” Aloy says, and she blames her life as an outcast for missing what probably would have been obvious to anyone who grew up being able to talk to anyone they chose. “Like you?” 

Ikrie’s jaw tightens as if Aloy had landed a blow she wasn’t expecting before grinning, a flash of teeth. “I left my homeland behind because I was sick of being bound by tradition. After Meilan,” she stops to swallow and Aloy feels her own throat close in sympathy,”...got hurt, it was obvious she valued her dream more than what we had. And I realized I couldn’t join the White Teeth just to stay her shadow on the snow. It wouldn’t have been right for me.”

“I don’t know what I might have done if it weren’t for you,” Ikrie says, earnest in a way that makes Aloy’s already racing heart start going double time. “Probably hunted in the dark ice until the cold claimed me. But with you I saw a world beyond tradition and letting others dictate what I wanted, and what I was willing to do.”

Heart pounding at her wrists and neck, Aloy eases a step closer. Afraid that she might disturb the slew of words that Ikrie had seemed to be holding back for reasons of her own. “Why were you following me, Ikrie?”

Ikrie’s eyes were bright in the half-light, the color of metal. “Tribal law doesn’t hold you. I don’t want it to hold me either, never again. I’ve walked away from tradition and the rules that would tell me what path I have to walk. But now...I don’t know where to go.” She takes a breath and then steps closer, as if emboldened by Aloy’s careful approach. “I followed you to Meridian and there I found new purpose again, new hunts to test my skills and prove the kind of hunter I want to be.” She hesitates. “But I am alone, and the hunt is not enough if I don’t share it with someone.”

Aloy is surprised by the sudden surge of longing that Ikrie’s confession roused in her, an old ache from when Rost first began teaching her the skills she would need to become a Brave and win the answers she needed from the Matriarchs. They trained night and day, hunted through the wilds of the Embrace, but for all Rost was her mentor, Aloy was so very alone. By the Mother, she can only remember being alone, outcast and unwanted with only Rost’s gruff love to give her a taste at what every other child knew was theirs by right.

And here Ikrie was, offering her something she had wanted for so long it had long since faded into the way the world simply was. The sky was blue, there was always a Watcher just out of sight, and she was so very alone. Over time she had begun to convince herself that it didn’t matter, she didn’t need anyone, but losing Rost had ripped that scar wide open by losing the only person who had actually been there..

“Are you offering to be my shadow on the snow?” Aloy says, voice shaky with hope.

It really was a wonder to watch the tension being replaced by delight as Ikrie realizes that Aloy was not going to turn her away. “Unfortunately there isn’t any snow around here,” she says, smiling broad enough to crinkle the corners of her eyes. It make’s Aloy’s breath catch in the back of her throat. “But I could be your ghost in the grass?”

“I would like that very much,” Aloy said. She gestures to her new partner. “Let’s go. If you are going to be sticking around, I need to get you a mount.”

“Not a Strider.” Ikrie doesn’t hesitate, just falls into step with Aloy as if its what they have always done as they head back the way they came. “I want a Charger. They have those curled horns.”

“Fine, I’ll get you a Charger.”


End file.
